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Grammar

Native vs. foreign speakers of a language

Even as a native we make mistakes in our own language. Some words are just meant to give us a bit of trouble. In Danish and English for instance the words “lie/lay” – “ligge/lægge” are know to be common mistakes among even native speakers.

In Denmark it seems to be mainly one part of the country, namely West Jutland, that are having problems setting those two words apart. It seems to me that it has become such a big part of the daily language that it sounds natural to them, whereas it immediately starts an alarm bell in everybody else’s ears.

Grammar: Native vs. foreign speakers

Another thing that has come to my attention is that if you ask a native about some grammar rules, they, unless they have actually studied languages, can’t explain why it is so! As a language student you need to study and learn a lot of rules in order to master the foreign language more or less fluently.

With exceptions of cause, some people have a flair for learning other languages and seem to, by living in a country for some time, to master it just as well.

But my point being, foreigners often know your native language grammar better than you – because they had to learn it in order to master or understand your language. Inevitably the foreigners are likely to make some mistakes, especially when it comes to idioms, but they will still be able to explain certain rules or reasons that you will not!

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German prepositions

In my last blog post I wrote about German adjectives’ inflections, in which I also shortly mentioned German prepositions. This post will therefore be about German prepositions and which case they take.

A preposition is “a word that shows the relationship of a noun or a pronoun to some other word in the sentence”(1) and it links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence. Prepositions are placed before the article, adjective and noun and tell the position of the noun/person etc. Both in German and English the prepositions are flexible and there isn’t always an equivalent in the other language as most languages have their own way of expressing a relationship.

The 3 cases

In German the prepositions take 3 cases: Accusative, Dative and/or Genitive. This means that each preposition take an object in Accusative, Dative or Genitive – some prepositions even have two cases to choose from, which I’ll get into later. If you want to master the German Language you need to practice the prepositions and which case each preposition take – you can of course always look this up in a dictionary, but knowing most of them will save you time writing/translating.

Prepositions with Accusative

When I first learned this string of words, I learned it as a rhyme: durch, für, gegen, ohne, wieder, um, kannst du nicht die Akkusative, dann bist du wirklich dumm! There are, however, more prepositions than those 6, which take Accusative:

Durch

through, by

Für

for

Gegen

against, for

Ohne

without

Wider

Against, to, towards

Um

around, for; at (time)

Entlang

along, down -This preposition however goes after the object: Sie geht den Fluss entlang./
She is walking along the river. (1)

Bis

until, to, by –Bis is technically an accusative preposition, but it is almost always used with a second preposition (bis zu, bis auf, etc.) in a different case, or without an article (bis April, bis Montag, bis Bonn). (1)

Prepositions with Dative

These prepositions take the Dative case:

Aus

from, out of

Bei

at, near

Mit

with, by

Nach

after, to

Seit

since (time), for

Von

by, from

Zu

at, to

außer

except for, besides

Entgegen

Against, contrary to

gegenüber

across from, opposite (can go before or after its object)

gemäß

according to, after, subject to

nächst

Next to

samt

Together with, along with

zuwieder

against

E.g. Er trank aus der Flaschen – he drank from the bottle

Er wohnt bei seiner Grossmutter – He live with his grandmother

Two-way-prepositions: prepositions with Accusative/Dative

An

at, on, to

Auf

at, to, on, upon

Hinter

Behind

In

in, into

Neben

beside, near, next to

Über

about, above, across, over

Unter

under, among

Vor

in front of, before;
ago (time)

Zwischen

between

A two-way-preposition take either an object in Accusative or Dative case all depending on the situation.

When deciding on, whether a two-way-preposition has an object in Accusative or Dative you can decide so by asking either: wohin (where to) or wo (where). If it’s a motion the preposition take Accusative case, and if it’s a location the object take Dative case. An easy example to show this rule is:

1) The boy went in the house to pick up his bag -> here the boy moves from outside the house and into the house = motion

2) The boy is playing in the house -> here the boy stays at the same place, namely in the house = location.

Figurative sense

In case the two-way-preposition stands in a sentence, where it has a figurative sense, then the main rule is: auf and über always take Accusative case, while the rest take Dative case.

Prepositions with Genitive and Dative

Here are some of the most important prepositions that take both Genitive and Dative case. In this case it doesn’t make a difference which case you choose.

Binnen

Within

Dank

Due to, thanks to

Laut

By, according to

Trotz

In spite of

zufolge

According to

Verbs with prepositions

Like in English, many German verbs and verb phrases take a certain preposition. This is a pitfall for many foreigners learning a new language, as it might not be the same preposition used in all languages, just have a look at this example: Believe in -> glauben an.

Rule of thumb is that the German verb phrase take an object in the same case as the used preposition, just be aware of the two-way-prepositions.

Prepositions Used with Verbs (Table fund in source 1)

Prep.

Verb Phrase

Example

an*

an etw arbeiten D

Er arbeitet an einem Roman.
He’s working on a novel.

an*

an etw/jdn denken A

Ich denke oft an ihn.
I think of him often.

auf*

auf etw achten A

Sie müssen auf den Preis achten.
You have to pay attention to the price.

Verbs with cases

Below I’ve listed some verbs that take an object in either Accusative or Dative case. You need to be aware of some of these as the Accusative object might be missing in some sentences. There are of course many other verbs than those listed below, make sure to check your dictionary to be sure.

E.g.

Hängen + A

Legen +A

Setzen +A

Stellen +A

Ankommen +D

Eintreffen +D

Sich einfinden +D

Erscheinen +D

Sich versammeln +D

Sich niederlassen +D

Quiz

I’ve listed some links to tests, which you can take in order to test your skills in the above mentioned grammatical areas.

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More on adjectives

Not long ago I wrote a blog about adjectives. This blog will also be about adjectives, but instead focus will be on German adjectives and their inflections. In German the adjective inflection depends on the case, number and gender as well as a determiner, if any.

Take this sentence for example: The two black dogs live in a beautiful villa.

If we analyze the sentence then the black dog is our subject and it stands in Nominative case, live is our verb and in a beautiful house is ‘where they live ’ – here controlled by in+D. (In another blog post I’ll talk about prepositions and which case they take).

In order to make a correct sentence we need to know: the case, the gender of the noun and the number as well as which determiner stands before the noun. After a short analyze we can translate the sentence into German:

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Every time we write, translate or correct a text, we use punctuation marks. The main idea of punctuation is to divide the text into information blocks, which at the same time serves to make the text easier to read and thereby understand.

Punctuation has always been a tricky part of learning a language, e.g. some languages use the grammatical comma, where the comma divides the main and the subordinate clause. In other languages there is no comma between the main and the subordinate clause. However, you can also find languages, which doesn’t use punctuation at all. This is seen in the Thai language, where the words are written in one continual line or in the rune language, where a space was used to indicate a new sentence.

Where to use what?

I’ve uploaded a table that shows, where you use the different punctuation symbols in a sentence: Proper-Punctuation (Source)

The English punctuation rules

If you want to get a deeper knowledge of the English punctuation and grammar rules you can have a look at this homepage. Here you get all the rules and there is even a test that you can take at the end of each topic.

The Danish punctuation rules

Back in 2004 Denmark changed its traditional grammatical punctuation (like the one we know from e.g. German) to a more flexible punctuation rule (like the English, Swedish and Norwegian). The Danish punctuation rules are set by Danske Sprognævn (the Danish language council) and can be found in Retskrivningsordbogen (the Danish spelling dictionary).

Where the old comma divided the main and the subordinate clauses, the new gives the writer an option to leave out the comma between the main and subordinate clauses. Because the rules are many I suggest that you have a look in the newest edition of Retskrivningsordbogen. You can also get an overview here.